According to a comprehensive study conducted by Yale University and published in the journal Social Science and Medicine, people who read books more than 3.5 hours a week live a full 23 months longer than the people who didn’t read at all. That extended lifespan applied to all book-reading participants, regardless of “gender, wealth, education or health” factors. That’s a 20% reduction in mortality attributed to a sedentary activity! That’s a big deal, and a very easy way to improve quality of life.

“Further, our analyses demonstrated that any level of book reading gave a significantly stronger survival advantage than reading periodicals, (magazines, blog posts, social media, etc.) This is a novel finding, as previous studies did not compare types of reading material; it indicates that book reading rather than reading in general is driving the survival advantage.”

The reason books had greater gains than periodicals is because book reading involves more cognitive faculties. The readers didn’t begin with higher cognitive faculties than the non-readers; they simply engaged in the activity of reading, which heightened those faculties. “This finding suggests that reading books provides a survival advantage because its immersive nature helps to maintain cognitive status,” said the study’s authors.

[In other words, reading good books keeps your brain in tune. – Indy Beagle]